


Is It Like The Ocean?

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, F/M, Humor, Little Mermaid Elements, No one should read this, Sexual Humor, Stein is a fishboy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 02:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9471377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: Or: The Useless Fishboy Stein AU.Marie Mjolnir, working as a lifeguard in Australia, stumbles across something a tiny bit strange when she decided to walk the beach at night. And by tiny bit, she means gigantic bit. Because it’s not every day you find a man with a fishtail washed up on shore, bleeding out into the Ocean. After dragging the unconscious sharkman back to her house and dumping him in her bathtub, she’s left with the task of nursing him back to health. Which would certainly be easier were he not the most stubborn mermaid her side of the equator.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soundofez (ficsofez)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=soundofez+%28ficsofez%29).
  * Inspired by [Is It Like The Ocean?](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/259541) by soundofez. 



> plz don't read this mess

* * *

 

The water looked like a dark mirror. Marie smiled, pushing her hair off from her face as she breathed in the scent of salt in the air. It got frigid at night but she preferred the beaches when no one was there; she liked it best when all the footprints had been washed clean, the people all coming home, the surfboards left in shacks or taken away and the sea could exist by itself without the disruption of other people. As she walked down the clean shore, her flipflops in her hand and her sarong tied around her hips as a makeshift skirt, she couldn’t help but feel at peace.

 

There was something about the Ocean at night that called to her. Okay, so that was cliché. Everyone who moved to Australia said the same thing, but she could have sworn that she was meant to be there with her toes wriggling in the sand. The cool sea breeze never left her skin in complete goosebumps, and even when it was colder, it wasn’t anywhere as cold as Sweden had been, back when she’d lived there as a girl.

 

Slowly, she walked the shoreline, making sure that the water would only lick at the bottoms of her feet occasionally. It wasn’t entirely safe to be out so late, but by what she could tell, it was completely abandoned. Besides, she’d been known to kick a man’s ass to kingdom come and then dragged him by his ear to his mama. She wasn’t particularly afraid.

 

Marie yelped as a particularly strong wave came over the tops of her feet, climbing up her ankles and leaving her to leap a few inches away, back to the relative safety of land. Just because the breeze didn’t bring her to goosebumps didn’t mean that the water didn’t.

 

“Lord,” she muttered. “You’d think it would be warmer with how damn hot it’s been.”

 

Australia was interesting, that was for sure. If the wildlife didn’t kill you, the Ocean might, or the heat. She shook her head, continuing to walk down the shore. Before, when she first moved, she’d collect seashells or search for animals who maybe had burrowed somewhere. As a child, she’d wanted to be a Marine Biologist. It didn’t particularly work out, not yet, at least. She was attending some classes at the university, but, currently being on break, it suited her better not to think about that. Still, she’d had dreams of one day discovering something. Something that no one had ever seen before.

 

After all, they’d explored so little of their oceans.

 

Marie hummed as she kept walking. It was farther than most people went. The beaches were beautiful, but there were specific places where people were allowed to swim, and specific places where they weren’t. Currently, she was at the part where, just a little ways down, there were large, craggy rocks that could cut your feet and your face and your entire body up as though you were paper in a shredder. Not fun. But, if you treaded lightly, and made sure to stay a good bit away from the rocks, it was the best place to look out and see how the moon all but glowed against the water’s surface.

 

It was the place Marie loved to go to, the most. This dangerous part of the beach where most others refused to tread. Sometimes, she’d find discarded bottles there, or lost shoes. Beach shorts or bikini tops that were shredded. But that was rare. Mostly, it was untouched by most human hands. And she preferred it that way. Humming, Marie dug her toes into the sand, feeling the leftover warmth it collected from the sun. During the day, it was a scorcher, could burn the skin off of the bottom of your feet off if you weren’t used to it. But at night, it was just cool enough to walk on without any problems, just warm enough to feel nice and cozy.

 

But Marie was so preoccupied with the sand, the surf that was stronger at night, but not so bad that it came to her knees like it sometimes did during the day, that she didn’t notice something floating near the rocks. That is, until she got closer, and her brows furrowed.

 

“What the hell?” she asked, peering out into the darkness. She only had one workable eye, really. The prosthetic that she kept in the other for the sake convenience and so people wouldn’t be so discriminatory against her couldn’t see a thing, so she squinted, slightly. She had her phone, naturally, held by the strap of her bikini, resting against her bust, so she fumbled for it, quickly, finding the flashlight setting and-

 

she almost dropped the entire thing, gasping.

 

“Hey!” she called, immediately setting her phone and flip flops down on the ground, the whistle she usually had when she was on lifeguard duty left behind at her station. “Hey, are you okay!?”

When she got no response, she thought nothing of coming into the water.

 

That was a _man_. Or, at least, a person floating there. The waves rolled him, exposing shoulders and collarbone as he turned, and there was something dark leaking out of him. When the water turned him slightly more, she could make out what she assumed must have been a wound. Probably some drunk guy coming to this part of the beach because it was isolated. God, what if he was dead?

 

“Hold on, okay?” she asked, feeling her feet slicing up against the rocks, but ignoring the pain as she waded into the water, fighting the tide. He wasn’t out too far. All things considered, were this on the beach in the morning, it would be an easy save, but the water was dark, and scary at night. It held secrets and bodies and bones, and she knew that. And it would claim her just as easily.

 

But she couldn’t leave him.

 

Finally, when she’d gotten in deep enough to start swimming, her expression set and she all but jackknifed across the water, cutting a clean, easy line to him. The stars seemed to glow, the moon bright enough that, when she got in close, her fears were confirmed. The man was only floating enough to expose some of his torso, not a usual dead man’s float. From the short glimpses of the wound on his side, she had a sharp fear that maybe he had lost his legs to something in the sea. It wouldn’t be the first time.

 

When she grabbed him round the waist, throwing his arm over her shoulders, she felt something rough and. . .odd against her legs, making her furrow her brows. But the water was freezing, it cut to her bones, left them chilled, numbing her toes. She could be feeling anything.

 

“Just hold on, okay?” she muttered, swimming their way out. She could feel him breathing against her, which was a good sign. Or, she thought she felt him breathing against her. “Just hold on, I’m going to get you out of here.”

 

If he heard anything that she said, comprehended it, she didn’t know, but he groaned when a wave crashed over their heads, sending her back farther into the ocean. Anyone who was less experienced would have panicked, their stomach roiling, but Marie only got more determined, pushing onward until she could feel the sea floor beneath her feet, and the rocks, too, and she started making her way to the shore. Thankfully, she’d managed to go along with the tide enough that they got sent diagonally, away from the worst of the rocks and closer to the smooth sand. It still wasn’t ideal for beach goers, but beggers couldn’t be choosers. Marie gasped from the adrenaline when she finally dragged him ashore, more desperate to catch her breath and collect her bearings for a moment before she could help him. Probably, he was just drunk. He was lucky she was here. Without looking at him, she let him lay on the beach, the water still cold against them. In a moment, when she got some more of her strength back, she’d bring him in farther, wrap him in her sarong, wake him up. Maybe call the police to help him home.

 

“You are _so_ lucky I was here, mister, or else-“ she started, finally looking down at him and-

 

What the- what the _hell?_ She’d seen some weird shit in Australia. She’s seen some weird shit in general, really. She’d come to understand that the ocean was a place of infinite possibilities, each of them weirder and weirder than the next.

 

But she downright gasped, loud and bodily, when she saw him laying on the beach. She stepped back, losing her footing and falling flat on her ass, eyes wide as she looked at him and-

 

And-

 

Holy fuck. Holy _fuck._ Mermaids were real. Mer- Mermen? Merpeople. Oh god, she was going crazy. How much saltwater did she drink that morning.

 

“Oh my god. . .oh my _god_ ,” she said, crawling backward for a moment as she openly stared at the tail. But, as her eyes went upward, sweeping over the rest of him, she noticed how he shivered, turning and curling in on himself, his hand coming to his side where she saw something that looked like. . .rope? No, seaweed, that he was holding to-

 

he was bleeding. She’d noticed it when he was in the water, but it was most noticeable, now, on the shore. And it was _bad._ A cut that looked like it extended at least a few millimeters in.

 

You could get that from falling on some rocks. But from the other scratches on him-

 

Marie scrambled up to her knees, rushing over to him and not knowing what to do. Part of her was screaming for her to run. Run and never look back. Say she saw nothing, knew nothing, wanted nothing, had never heard of anything like this happening before. The other part-

 

Well, the other part was looking at him, realizing how young he really seemed. Not a child, certainly not, but- her age. At least, he looked it, even with the hair that looked gray, dark as steel in the moonlight.

What would happen to him, she wondered. Who would find him? Would no one? Would the blood attract something that would- what? Kill him? Leave him worse off than before?

 

Her heart thud in her chest like a war drum. He made a pained sound, something that sounded like a whimper, and opened his mouth, revealing sharp teeth that did little more than worry his lip between them as he curled in, farther, fetal.

 

Marie’s chest clenched and she looked around before she carefully brought her hand to his side, feeling him flinch slightly from the heat of her body. But beyond that, he did little more than whimper again, and she saw how the blood was spilling out of him.

 

He needed medical assistance.

 

Marie bit her own lip, looking around and seeing her sarong off to the side.

 

God, she really hated having a heart, sometimes.

* * *

 

She adjusted him against her side, her heart beating hard in her chest. Just a little ways more and she’d be in her house without anyone having seen her. She was damn lucky it was dark and late and most people knew better than to come out that time unless they were off getting plastered somewhere. But, no, now she just had to be the one to carry a- a- a fishman off to her house. Thankfully, it wasn’t too far away, but, the point still stood. She had wrapped her sarong around him, hoping it would stop some of the bleeding, but it didn’t seem to do much. He bled red, however, which meant at least part of him was mammalian. Right? God, she wished she remembered basic biology.

 

Marie panted as she shouldered him, her feet sinking into the sand. The boardwalk would be hell, she could already tell, especially since with each step, his tail seemed to swish, almost brushing against her legs and she was concerned that his. . .scales. . .would scratch her. He was tall. Or, maybe she should say long? His tail was long. Maybe if he had legs he’d be considered tall. She didn’t know. She didn’t have a single clue. Her mind was buzzing.

 

Damn, her feet were burning. She could feel his heartbeat on her, however, and his soft breath on her face, though it was hitched and it smelled like blood. She couldn’t just. . .leave him. Not all alone on a high-traffic beach. Who knew what would happen to him? Maybe whatever it was that knocked him unconscious, whatever it was that was responsible for the bleeding wound at his temple would come back to finish the job and she couldn’t live with herself if she let that happen.

 

She couldn’t help but wonder how had he ended up washed ashore, but she was more concerned with the fact that she had a fish-man draped over her and she was dreading when the information would finally sink in.

 

Not when she made her way through the threshold of her house, all but dropping him onto her doormat so she could fish her keys from her bikini top. She grumbled as she stepped through, dragging the man in and making sure his tail wasn’t in the doorframe when she slammed the door shut once more and made a beeline to her bathroom.

 

As she deposited him into her tub, delicately bringing his tail into the tiny space, she pondered whether he preferred fresh or salt water.

 

Considering he was just in the ocean, she supposed salt would probably be the better guess. She turned on her tap, though it did nothing to wake him, and sighed as she went to grab her kosher salt.

The first shirtless man she had in her apartment in months and he had a damn tail.

 

Splendid.

 

Just her luck.

* * *

 

Marie’d been sitting in her kitchen for way too long, now. She’d done. . .what she thought she could. Google wasn’t much help. And she had no idea how much salt to put into her bathtub. He had seaweed on him, held tight to his wound, and had groaned when she’d plopped him into her bathtub and adjusted him so the wound was covered. It seemed that the time he’d spent exposing the cut had helped it clot up, some.

 

She’d have to check in a little bit how he was doing. She’d at least known that saltwater was used as an antiseptic and could promote healing. She’d dumped an entire canister of salt in that bath, so she hoped it was enough.

 

She had a fishman. In her bathroom. She had carried a fishman into her bathroom.

 

What was her life? What was she doing?

 

“Okay, Marie,” she said to herself. “Breathe. So, what’s the big deal, right?” she interrogated, not wanting to acknowledge just how loco she sounded. “So you have a fishboy in your bathroom? That’s okay. Some creatures can survive in outer space. There’s weird shit out there. Just- calm. . .down.”

Her breathing was odd, a strange mixture of nervous, unbelieving laughter, and- well, nervous, unbelieving laughter just about summed it up.

 

She didn’t get much chance to dwell, after that, however, because she heard an odd thud and her head whipped to the side. Her feet, sore and tired, were immediately moving her over to the bathroom, and her heart seized when she came a few steps away from the door.

 

What if he- what if he _ate_ her? From the looks of the teeth, he was definitely a meat-eater. He looked like a shark when she got him in the light, if the tail and the fins were anything to go by.

So, slowly, ever so slowly, she peered in, and the sight just about broke her heart.

 

He was trying to sit up, in the tub, looking around, disoriented and confused. It seemed as though his wound wasn’t bleeding, still held together by a clot, but he was making odd, distressed noises as he flopped around, cramped in her tub.

 

“Hey!” she said, stepping in. Scary he might be, but he was still someone in need of help first and foremost, and Marie had been and always would be a bleeding heart. The look on his face broke her afresh, the pain, the _panic._ “Hey, hey, you’re safe. You’re okay, I’m helping you-“ she said, kneeling by the tub and without hesitancy grasping his arms. She had no doubt, from the feeling of the wiry muscle she felt beneath her palms, that he would usually be strong, but the pain and delirium made him weak, and he thrashed for a moment against her before she carefully held him down, into the water. “You’re safe, okay? You’re alright. Breathe.”

 

“Who- I-“

 

“Holy fuck you can talk!?” she asked, all but leaping off of him, but he flicked his tail and the strength of it sent him rocking against the side of the tub, disturbing his wound and making him cry out.

 

“ _Pain_ ,” he said, and she breathed in a harsh breath.

 

“I know,” she said, soothingly. “Shhh, stay still, okay? Stay still. I’m going to take care of you. I promise. I _promise.”_

 

He only tried to curl in on himself, one of his arms going back around his side to hold the wound, and hissing when he touched it. She’d unwrapped him from her sarong as soon as she wet it, so as not to disturb the clot, but his nails looked somewhat sharp and she worried he’d dig into the wound.

“Listen to me- don’t touch it, okay? Okay? Don’t touch it. I took the seaweed off so nothing disturbs it. Can you hear me? Hello?”

 

He gasped in pain, shaking, and she kept talking, soothingly.

 

“Listen- what’s your name? What’s your name?”

 

“S-Stein-“ he managed to gasp out, “Frank- Frank Stein-“

 

“Okay, you’re coherent. You’re okay. Do you hear me?” she waited for him to nod, weakly, his eyes barely open as he looked at her. No doubt, she was just a blurry mass in his eyes, but she knew she was all softness and slapped a tender smile on her face. “I’m Marie. I’m here to help you. I promise I’ll help you feel better.”

 

He said nothing, only relaxing slightly in her grasp as she spoke to him soothingly, noticing that he had stopped thrashing so his wound had some time to calm.

 

“It’s okay,” she continued, chanting it, remembering all her lifeguard training and her research on first aid. She didn’t know exactly what applied for him, considering the tail but-

 

it was the final nail in the coffin, for her. She was in this till the end. She’d brought him to her house and she doubted she’d be able to bring him out until he was healed, likely late at night. He was _hurt_ , really hurt.

 

She looked at him, again, taking her hands off of him and turning the water back on in the tub. His wriggling had caused a lot of it to spill out, making it so that he was sitting in more shallow water. As it filled up, she took in how he looked, how. . .human. His hair, as she’d predicted, had been gray, but he didn’t look old. And in the light, those _scars._

 

Bleeding heart, indeed. Her best friend, one Azusa Yumi currently backpacking across Asia, had once told her she was a sucker for an attractive man in need of help.

 

Fuck her backwards. She was right.

* * *

 

She didn’t sleep much that night. She’d gone on a Google Odyssey that had led her to some weird places she wasn’t really willing to go to, again. She’d already called in to work, to let them know that she was coming down with something, sometime around 6 in the morning, and now her eyes were dry and tired, and all she wanted to do was take a nap. For a couple of hours, she’d managed to doze off, sitting against the wall of her hallway. The pillows helped, sure, and she’d brought her biggest, comfiest blanket, but three hours of sleep did not a well rested woman make.

 

Which was why, when he woke up the second time, she was too groggy to notice until she heard a loud curse and a few bangs, only the loudest of which actually woke her.

 

“What the- what the fuck?” she asked, her mind not catching up to her, for a moment. For a scant instant, she was convinced she was back in Sweden, sharing housing with her siblings, who would wake up at all hours and bang on the walls. But, then, like a bolt of lightning, she remembered.

 

Fishperson. Fishman. She had a fucking fishman in her bathtub.

 

And this time, he sounded angry.

 

She didn’t throw much caution to the wind, often. Marie, for all intents and purposes, was a woman who usually had a plan and erred on the side of ‘don’t die’. Even as a lifeguard who put her wellbeing on the line for others, she always had to consider the path of least resistance and bodily harm.

 

Well, that path went right out the window as she heard another curse, knowing she’d be arming herself with little more than a plunger if things got out of hand. But the man was still wounded, and she’d handled him easily enough last night, so-

 

Marie found herself scrambling into her bathtub. “Woah! Woah, what are you doing!?” she asked, watching as he tried reaching for yet another of her shampoo bottles to throw into the water. “Don’t do that, it’ll make you sick!”

 

“What are you trying to do!?” he howled, clawing at his skin. She noticed that the wounds on him that had appeared healed were irritated, and the large laceration on his side was red, angry. “Who are you!? What-”

 

“Calm down, hey-”

 

“Get me out of here!-” he said, bringing himself up on his arms, securing himself on the edge of the bathtub and trying to pull himself up, but his arms wobbled and he fell back, landing against his side and curling in on himself, instantly, holding in his whine.

 

“Hey!” she yelped, running forward and grabbing his shoulder. “What did you do that for-”

 

“Get off of me!” he said, icy and cold and cruel, jerking his shoulder from where she was touching him, but it only jostled him more and he curled in on himself farther. Marie’s eyes went wide, seeing his handsome face etched with so much. . .fury. But, at the same time, the frustration welled up in her, too.

 

“Calm. Down,” she commanded, using the no nonsense tone that had gotten her into some hot water, before. Pardon the pun. But he only looked at her hatefully.

 

“Drain the- get me out of this water- do you want to _kill_ me?”

 

“What? Kill you? No! No, I’m here to _help_ you-”

 

Well, from the looks of things, that wasn’t going so well.

* * *

 

Fishmen? Yeah. Turns out not such a big fan of being brined to death.

 

Leave it to her to put enough salt into the water to nearly kill him.

 

Whoops.

 

* * *

 

It was a long and scathing talk that had her running with her metaphorical tail between her legs to the living room. Fishboy with the Mary Shelley name? Could speak English. Well. Well enough to curse her out for a solid ten minutes before they got into a hell of an argument and he refused to give her any help in taking care of him at all.

 

For a moment, she wondered if this was what taking care of a toddler felt like.

 

He had done little more than tell her how much salt to pour in, and then stewed for the remaining questions she’d asked. What medicine did he need? What did he eat? Why did he have that weird seaweed held to his side?

 

But Marie wasn’t _cruel,_ damnit. She’d brought him here to help him. Maybe that was the wrong choice but, damnit, it was one she made, and she decided way too long ago that she would never regret helping someone in need.

 

So, there she was. Several hours later and near dead on her feet.

 

Trying her damn best.

 

“I. . .uh. . .I brought food?” she said through the door, feeling ridiculous. Damnit, it shouldn’t have been that she was standing outside of her own bathroom, knocking, because some. . .some. . .some My Little Mermaid wannabe had invaded her bathtub.

 

But, of course, the fact of the matter was simply that she had invited him in, so she supposed she couldn’t much complain.

 

“Are you. . .decent?” she clarified. “Can I come in?”

 

She heard a snort from the other side of the door. “If you’d like.”

 

“That’s not much of an answer,” she grumbled, finally twisting the doorknob and walking in. He was. . .sitting up, she supposed, since he didn’t have his arms draped over the back of her tub, and his tail was submerged instead of flicking around up out of the water as though to show off his fins.

 

He looked at her critically. “Food?” he inquired, and Marie rolled her eye. Men were all the same, regardless of species, it seemed. The fastest way to their hearts was through their stomachs. She held up the container of fish food and, were she in a better mood, she’d have laughed at the absolutely horrified expression he had. “Do you take me for an overgrown flounder?”

 

“I don’t much take you for anything. If you hadn’t noticed, you’re a man with a fish tail!”

 

He didn’t protest that point. It seemed he’d cooled down since his freak out that morning. “What you are showing me is not food.”

 

“Yes, well, I asked you what you wanted, and you told me to figure it out. So it’s food to you.”

 

“Oi-“ he began, but she threw him the container and went to turn around.

 

“Maybe when you get some manners-“

 

“If I eat this, I’ll get sick,” he claimed, dryly, and she could feel his gaze burning her back. “You brought me here, you are obligated to-“

 

She whirled around, finally, the frustration mounting.. “Obligated to- what? Feed you? House you? You’ve been nothing but a brat to me since I brought you here!”

 

“I did not request to be-“

 

“You needed help! It was the decent human thing to do to- to take you in and try to nurse you back to health.” Her mind flashed back to the sight of him curled on the beach, the whimpers, the pain etched in every piece of him, the unspoken plead for help.

 

“You have no idea how,” he informed her, and her fists curled up. “You nearly murdered me with the amount of saline you-“

 

“You know what? I tried. And if you want to go back to that damn Ocean, you can! Just say the words and I’ll get you a wheelchair and you can go! Do you think this is comfortable for me, too? I’ve had to- I can’t even use my own bathroom!”

 

That was probably the most humiliating of it all. She hadn’t thought that through until she realized at around 9 am that she had to pee something fierce. She probably apologized to her garden twelve times after going outside.

 

But, then again, she knew that was more of a threat than she wanted it to be. He was trapped, for all intents and purposes. He couldn’t even sit up properly just a little bit ago. He was still so wounded.

 

But she was too good for this nonsense. And especially from some- some brat with a fishtail.

 

What did it say about her that the fact that he was a merman was less important to her, now, than the fact that he was being an ass? She understood, of course, he was in pain, hurt, scared, in a foreign place, but, damnit, if someone was trying to help you, you take what you _get._

 

He regarded her silently before he turned his head to the side, avoiding her gaze, and she shook for a moment, so full of anger: that he dared, dared to chastise her when all she was trying to do was help.

 

“If you intend to nurse me back to health, as you so eloquently put it, you’re doing a piss poor job,” he said, and she sputtered, about to breathe fire. “I need Epsom salt. . .and seaweed.”

 

She blinked at him. “Are you. . .finally gonna stop being an asshole and help me out?”

 

Stein sighed, tipping his head back, and her gaze focused on his throat, the bob of his Adam’s apple, the slight stubble that was coming over his jaw and-

 

“I. . .require your assistance so long as I am confined here,” he grudgingly told her, and she shook herself out of her oggli- observations! (damn you, Azusa, she thought. Sucker for an attractive man in need was way too on the nose for Marie’s liking. He had a fish tail, for god’s sake, get a grip) long enough to meet his eyes.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then will you be pleasant?”

 

“I have never been pleasant,” he answered, and Marie snorted, leaning against her wall.

  
“Will you try? Because if you won’t even try, then why should I?”

 

He seemed to look at her for too long a time. “. . .you aren’t like most humans,” he said, instead of answering her question.

 

“W. . what?”

 

“Yes,” he said, diverting the attention once more. And she realized that he wasn’t much doing it because he wanted to, but because he had to. He had no other choice. He couldn’t leave, and even moving hurt. But she’d take it. “I will try.”


	2. Chapter 2

He hissed when she brought her hand to where his skin began to grow rougher, right where the wound was. It was a necessary discomfort, she knew, but that didn’t make it much easier. Especially with the fact that they were still on rather tentative ground. Nothing had really broken the ice between them. But that didn’t mean that, when she looked at him, something didn’t ache inside of her.

 

“Christ,” she breathed, the makeshift Fish-man first-aid kid open beside her as she knelt by the tub. “What the hell happened to you?” she asked, and she might as well have had a whole Ocean in her voice by how watery she sounded. Slowly, her fingers rubbed away from the wound, as though soothing, and she felt him relax beneath her touch. “It’s like someone tried to. . .cut your tail off. . .”

 

When she looked up at him, his expression was dark and there was something faraway in his eyes. He was the sea itself personified in that moment, dangerous, she realized, and full of secrets she would never be able to go deep enough to find. What kind of shipwrecks was he holding inside of himself?

 

“. ..Stein?”

 

“What happened to your eyes?” he asked, instead, and she reared back, the hand that had been soothing over his skin coming over the prosthetic she kept in.

 

“I- How did you. . .know?”

 

“They don’t catch the light the same,” he explained, but she knew it was not curiosity that made him ask.

 

“It’s. . .” she swallowed. “Private.”

 

“As is mine,” he remarked, and she looked at him for a long beat before she nodded and dipped her head back down to continue cleaning the wound. If he wanted to keep the bones of that memory from her, from anyone, he was well within his right to do so. Just like she was.

 

“Right. Do you want to wrap this or. . .?” she asked, instead, and she waited as he thought.

 

“The saline would do it better than the gauze,” he said, and she nodded once more.

 

“I thought so, too. I mean, it was uncomfortable for you to be out of the water for so long, right?”

 

“Mostly just my tail must be submerged,” he said, but she knew it wasn’t a no.

 

“Right. Speaking of, does the water need to be changed?”

 

“Not for now,” he said, shifting around, and she realized that she had kept her hand on his torso for a moment too long. She took her palm off of him as though burned.

 

“R-right,” she repeated. “Right, I’ll just- I should go- my show is on,” she babbled, reaching down and closing the first-aid kit with a clumsy click, bringing herself up to her feet.

 

He looked at her for a long time before he nodded. “Right.”

 

“Right.”

* * *

 

Part of her really, honestly, genuinely hated him.

 

Okay, that was a lie.

 

She was frustrated by him, annoyed by him, even, at times, ready to strangle him with his own damn tail, but she didn’t hate him. It was just easier to say she hated him. So, screw it, she was tired, and cranky, and she really just wanted to have her house back without him being a snarking asshat.

 

Two weeks. It had been two weeks. And, for as much as he trusted her with dressing and caring for his wound, as much as he realized she was trying to help, as much as, as the time went by, he came to realization that she really, truly, just wanted him to get better, they were still pussyfooting around.

 

Well, no more. No. More. She’d had it.

 

It was 4 in the fucking morning.

 

And she had to pee.

 

The agony of it all. The cruel unfairness. That she only had one bathroom, and if he expected her to go outside-? Oh, he had another thing coming.

 

It had been two weeks. She’d adjusted to him in ways that she genuinely didn’t think she’d ever adjust to anyone. Such as the fact that the tail become simply an oversight. It paled in contrast to his personality. And the fact that she watched him practically inhale a whole tuna in one go, making a mess of the bathwater.

 

Yeah, after that, she’d told him if he wanted to act like some ridiculous character from a movie or a TV show, he was damn well going to get a bib. He pouted about that for a solid two days, but he certainly ate the next fish far more daintily.

 

And, naturally, never let her live down the fact that she tried to feed him fish flakes. Expired, he felt the need to remind her. She’d had it left over from when her last Goldfish, Nibbles, died. May he rest in watery peace.

 

So, they found a natural, albeit offbeat rhythm to each other. He finally let her help him, and she tolerated his assholeish self because she chose this, damnit, and sometimes he could be funny, and she got to touch his chest.

 

Win win.

 

Expect when she had to pee.

 

Slowly, Marie tiptoed her way over to the bathroom, not bothering to knock. With any luck, he’d be asleep. She fidgeted, trying to slowly open the door. She was so close- sooooo close-

 

“Oy, what do you want?” he asked, and she froze on the spot. Good lord. Why? _Why?_

In a split moment, Marie looked the void in the eye. She stared down everything she knew about propriety. Everything she knew about basic, decent manners.

 

And then, she stared down her bladder.

 

And her bladder won.

 

“You know what?” she announced. “I don’t care. I have to pee. Get over it!

 

And, with that, the door slammed open, forcing him to jump.

 

“What the hell-?” he started, but Marie was already throwing the curtain around him, all but jumping in place. No way in hell was she going in a potted plant at this time of the night. No. She was done. It had been weeks. _Weeks._

 

Fuck. It. All.

* * *

 

The oceanboy may not have any manners, but it seemed that neither did she.

 

Well. At least they were a match in that regard.

 

But, really, did he have to act as though she was trying to bodily poison him when she sprayed perfume? If he hadn’t noticed, he was a fucking shark. It wasn’t like he smelled like roses.

 

Until he actually smelled like roses.

* * *

 

“So,” she asked, kneeling by the tub once more, one hand coming into the first aid box beside her to grab up some ointment, “what do you do for entertainment?”

 

“You mean recently?”

 

“Well, recently, you’ve been a bit. . .confined,” she admitted, looking around her bathroom.

 

“Yes. I’ve read all your shampoo bottles. Nasty ingredients in some of them-“

 

“We’re not here to discuss the state of my hair,” she frowned at him. “Which, might I add, is in surprisingly good shape considering I’ve had to shower at work, recently.”

 

Stein look unperturbed at her general accusation/mild resentment. She’d dragged him into her bathroom, as he was fond of gleefully pointing out whenever she felt fit to complain, and as a result, she’d grown increasingly irritated at the fact that, damn him, he was right and she really had no room to make comments about where she was going to pee or how she was going to take a decent shower when she had an actual fishboy living in her bathroom who refused to use her shower curtain.

 

“Oh, my apologies. Was I meant to compliment your hair?”

 

“Stop being such a jerk and just answer my question,” she replied, looking at him pointedly. “Don’t make me threaten the fish food.”

 

“Cruel and unusual punishment.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Cough up the details, buddy,” she said, slowly smearing some of the ointment over his side, blowing on the cut slightly to soothe the sting.

 

“I’d kill things,” he said, simply.

 

“Funny.”

 

“I’m serious,” he said. “We didn’t have underwater supermarkets.”

 

“Seriously?” she asked, looking up from her deep concentration on his wound. “No underwater Atlantis?”

 

“Where do you humans get these ideas?”

 

“Just. . .it’s interesting, you know?”

 

“Not as much as you would assume,” he shrugged as Marie rifled through the medicines she had and pulled out some copper pills to throw into the water.

 

“Yeah?” she asked, reading and rereading the instructions on the back.

 

“Mmmm.”

 

“Well, you’re being chatty,” she snarked, going to tip the entire contents of the vial into the bathtub before he grasped at her wrist.

 

“I’ll deal with that,” he said simply, pulling the vial out of her hands and tossing it back into the kit. Marie pouted at him.

 

“Look, I’m just asking so you’re not perpetually bored all day, waiting for me to come back home so you can have something to do! You must be beyond tired of being here.”

 

“My main concern is how cramped it is.”

 

“Yes, well, can’t do much about that,” she grumbled, standing up and stretching. “Listen, maybe we can watch a movie?”

 

“Mooovee?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

 

Marie’s eyebrows went up. “Um. . .a film? In a cinema? Theater?”

 

He continued looking at her blankly. “Pardon?”

 

“. . .you don’t know what a movie is.”

 

“No, I believe we established that much already.”

 

She started to giggle, the incredulous feeling seeming to bubble up from her chest. The man before her, who she had once thought so deep and dangerous, or, at least, capable of such, sitting in her bathtub with his fins out, asking her what a movie was.

 

Oh, she’d show him all her favorite rom coms. The Notebook and When Harry met Sally and 13 Going on 30 and Fifty First Dates and Sleepless in Seattle and-

 

“Oi,” he said, looking unamused.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” she immediately apologized. “Just. . .I didn’t expect for you not to know.”

 

“I lived underwater. What part of that is new to you?”

 

“Oh, don’t be such a grump,” she dismissed easily as he folded his arms over his bare chest, making a slight hissing noise as he jostled his wound. Her brows twitched, something in her throbbing uncomfortably at the idea of him being hurt, but she shoved it all down when she realized that he was all right. For the most part. “It’s. . .uh, it’s sort of. . .hm,” she said, trying to think of how best to describe what a film was. “It’s kind of like moving pictures on a screen, set to music.”

 

“That sounds. . .boring,” he said, and Marie pouted at him.

 

“No! Movies are great. They’re fun and interesting and they can be super moving or bring you to tears or make you laugh or-“

 

“Okay,” he said, blinking at her.

 

Marie scowled. “Look, I’ll show you, okay?”

 

He looked at the bathtub he was currently confined in. “How?” he asked, likely thinking that he had the upper hand. But Marie had something on her side.

 

A laptop.

 

Technology, don’t fail her now. She got up, bringing her arms over her head in a quick stretch and turning around to walk out to her bedroom.

 

“I’ll be right back!” she called, making her way to her room and looking around. She’d charged her laptop for a while, so she was sure it could handle a movie without being plugged in, and she scooped her laptop off of her bed, waiting a moment before she grabbed a pillow, too.

 

Frankly, there was no way in hell that she was going to allow Stein to hold onto her computer. For one, he’d probably get electrocuted and then die and that was the last thing she wanted when she brought him into her house. For two, her laptop would be totally fried, and she’d paid a ridiculous amount of money for that thing. No chance, no way.

 

Quickly, she made her way back to the bathroom, throwing her pillow down on her floor before she plopped down on top of it, cushioning her butt and scooting so that her back was against the porcelain of her bathtub. “This,” she said, proudly, bringing her knees close to her so she could balance her laptop atop them, “is a personal computer. And we can watch movies on it.”

 

“It appears to be made of some sort of plastic,” he said, sounding unimpressed but curious.

 

“Yeah, it is. But the real magic-“

 

“Magic isn’t real-“

 

“But the real magic comes when you turn it on,” she proclaimed, opening the laptop and pressing the on button, watching as the screen lit up and Stein made a motion away from it as though the thing was haunted.

 

“What the fuck-“

 

She looked at him in confusion. “What-?”

 

“How did you do that?”

 

“I. . .I mean, I pressed the button.”

 

“It’s interactive,” he said, leaning over the tub, one of his wet arms flicking water into her face, and she yelped, inching away from him.

 

“Don’t get water on my laptop! It’ll break!”

 

“It is affected by water?”

 

“Mine is! There are some that are waterproof, but this one, I can assure you, certainly is not,” she hissed. “Break my laptop and you owe me major, buddy.”

 

Stein slid his arms back into the water with a quiet splash, his expression promising that he was going to behave. “Fine,” he said, by means of agreement, and Marie eyed him for a moment.

 

“Okay,” she said, before looking back at her screen and clicking around for a little bit. Stein peered over her shoulder.

 

“What is a Netflix?” he asked.

 

“It’s a website.”

 

“What is a website?”

 

Marie paused, looking up. “Um. . .hang on, let me google it so I can explain it to you better.”

 

“What is a google?”

 

“This is gonna get real old real fast, you know that, right?” she asked, lifting a brow at him.

 

“You brought me here-“

 

“So I owe you answers. Yes, yes, blah blah. I get the jist. How about we just watch the movie first and then we can worry about me becoming your personal Wikipedia?”

 

“What is-“

 

“Shhh,” she shushed, scrolling through Netflix and finally finding a movie that she wanted. “Here! This one is perfect to start out with.”

 

Stein looked at the screen intently as Marie allowed the movie to buffer for a minute, and and she almost couldn’t hold down her general giggles at what his expression would be while he watched it.

 

Marie turned her head slightly to watch his reaction as he looked at the film, which had finally buffered, and was now playing. His brows furrowed slightly, and he brought his hair out of his eyes with one hand, flicking the gray locks back. “Water. . .The Little Mermaid?”

 

“Mmmmmmhm!” she said, cheerfully. “Because you’re a mermaid.”

 

“Is that what you call us?” he asked, simply, but then scowled as he saw Ariel swimming across the screen. “Now that is simply a gross stereotype,” he scoffed, and Marie chortled.

 

“What, you all don’t have flowing red hair and sea-shell bras?”

 

“No,” he sniffed, easily, looking his nose up at the film.

 

Marie turned the brightness on her laptop up. It was going to be a fun couple of hours.

* * *

 

It was when Stein spoke halfway into the film that Marie had to take an actual moment to analyze exactly what she was doing with her life. Here she was, twenty three, sitting in her bathroom, watching The Little Mermaid with an actual mermaid, and he decides to open his mouth and remind her of this fact.

 

“What is this garbage?” Stein said, and she looked at him just in time to see him roll his eyes. “Fish don’t talk.”

 

She could feel the onset of a headache threatening her temples. “What? I. . .Stein,” she said, lookin at him pointedly, and Stein didn’t get the hint for a long moment. She could actually watch the hamster wheel in his mind spinning round and round and round until realization dawned on his face.

 

“I am not a fish,” he remarked, clearly offended.

 

She could only look at him even more pointedly, lifting a brow when his tail chose that particular moment to flick out of the water, waving in the air for a single instant before disappearing back beneath the water. Stein looked at his traitorous tail for a second before looking back at Marie’s ‘what was that?’ expression, grumbling.

 

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a fish.”

 

“You just flicked your tail out of the water.”

 

“I-“

 

“You have gills.”

 

“I am not a fish,” he insisted, and Marie snorted.

 

“Yeah, okay.”

 

“With my people,” he informed her, seriously, “being called a fish is a grave offense. It’s considered a slur.”

 

Marie’s heart felt like a stone instantly and she paused the movie, eye widening. “Oh my god, really? Seriously? Holy crap I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I just wanted to put on a silly movie and-“

 

She caught his expression a second too late, realizing that the start of a grin was forming on his lips, and she gaped at him.

 

“You- asshole! I actually believe you, you damn jerk,” she grumbled, scrunching her lips to the side and dipping her hand into the water of the bathtub so she could flick it in his face, glaring. Stein, for his part, only shook his head, clearing his face of some of the water and allowing his creepy smile to finally overtake his face.

 

“You deserved it. But, regardless, I am not a fish.”

 

“Buddy, as far as I’m concerned, right now, you’re just an overgrown flounder.”

 

“Unfair and inaccurate. I am more closely related to a shark.”

 

“And sharks are. . .?” she probed.

 

“Selachimorpha,” Stein said, smugly, and Marie threw her arms up in the air.

 

“Oh, whatever. I give up, jerk. Just watch the damn movie,” Marie said, but her own smile was starting to twitch onto her lips, a fact that Stein was certainly not blind to, and his grin softened to a smirk as she hit the play button once more.

 

There was something about this that was relaxing. Maybe humans did have the right idea. At least, in regards to this.


	3. Chapter 3

She was too in her own head.

 

And she was sure people at work could tell, because she was coming and going as she pleased, head up in the clouds, staring out at the ocean. She had to get away from all that saline, really. It was doing something to her. Doing too much to her. It was all just-

 

it was all too much.

 

Which was why she was beyond grateful for the holiday break that she was getting, a long, three day weekend in which she could just lounge around and eat cupcakes that she went to the store to get specifically and came back with more fish than she knew what to do with, save for give them to Stein, and a giant bag of cookies.

 

She was going to do nothing but watch bad films and try to work out whatever the hell her head and her heart were doing to her and-

 

Or, rather, she’d do that after she answered the door. Marie groaned, popping her head out from her kitchen, where she was snacking on chocolate chips over the sink. It had been insanely warm, recently, making it so that everything melted in her grasp, and as much as Stein loved chocolate, he had no real place to wash his hands of it unless she threw her arm around his torso and helped him lean over to the sink, and he’d flick her with his tail and he was so damn heavy, the beast of a man, taller than anything and just- she couldn’t be that close to his skin at that moment. It wasn’t going to happen.

 

She mouthed a fast ‘go away’, a whine caught in her throat. She wasn’t even remotely presentable, but- well, who was she trying to impress, anyway? Marie rolled her eyes, shoving the remaining chocolate chips in her hand back into the bag and promising them that she’d be back before she quickly rinsed her hands.

 

“Coming!” she called out, drying quickly with a hand towel and smoothing down some of the frizz in her hair. For a moment, she wondered if she should actually wear normal clothes, or throw a shawl on or something, not that a tank top was any more revealing than her swimsuit, but still.

 

Instead, she threw caution to the wind. More than likely, it was just the mail guy. But, when she opened the door, squinting into the sunlight with only one eye, the other out and replaced by her patch, since she liked to clean her prosthetic herself sometimes, she only saw-

 

“Hey, Marie,” Joe said at the door, and she blinked up at him, leaning her hip against the doorframe.

 

“Joe! Hey, what brings you here?” she asked. That was odd, he usually never showed up at her house. Not unless she was puking her guts up.

 

“Just wanted to check on you. You’ve been acting weird recently. The beach hasn’t been the same without Baywatch around,” he told her, using that old nickname she’d gotten against her will back when they were required to wear red swimsuits.

 

“Oh, shut up,” she said, scowling. “You know I hate that nickname.”

 

“But it suits you,” he said teasingly, pushing on. “Anyway, now that I’m here, mind giving me something to drink? It’s scorching outside.”

 

“It’s always scorching outside,” she said easily, a phrase that came from memory before she remember the state her home was currently in. “And uh. . .I’m. . busy,” she said, wincing immediately from the very unconvincing lie.

 

“Yeah, doing what?” he asked, looking her over.

 

“I’m just. . .sorry, Joe. I’m just tired. I don’t really want to hang out, today.”

 

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, and the concern that came over his face was genuine. “Are you running a fever?” His hand came out to brush over her forehead, but she immediately pulled away, not wanting to be touched.

 

“No, I’m fine- Joe, just leave it. Joe!” she said, even as he disregarded her wishes and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead.

 

“You aren’t running a fever.”

 

“I said I wasn’t.”

 

He looked at her evenly. “Yeah, but you also said you were busy. Did I do something or- is there a reason you want me to go?”

 

“No. . .no,” she said, chewing the inside of her cheek.

 

“Alright,” he finally said. “But could you at least get me some water?”

 

She sighed but nodded. Being dehydrated in Australia could kill you faster than the million other creatures that resided there.

 

“Sure,” she said, turning around and walking to her kitchen. “Just. . .stay in the living room, I guess.”

 

“Alright,” he called after her, and Marie finally made her way to her sink, closing her eyes and leaning against the counter. Fuck. He was right. She’d been acting more and more strange, recently. Her mind in the clouds. She shook her head, reading up into her cupboard to grab a glass and rinsing it under the cool water of her sink, making her way to her fridge to get the filtered water she kept there.

 

“Oh, Marie! Is it cool if I use your bathroom?” Joe asked, and her eyes flew wide open, the glass almost slipping from her fingers.

 

“Joe! Uh- NO! No, Joe I-“ but she heard his footsteps and she all but threw the glass onto her table, rushing out of her kitchen so fast she almost skidded on her floors. “Joe, the plumbing-“

 

But she could feel in her gut that it was too late, and she managed to turn the corner just when Joe said “Oh-oh my god! Man, I’m so sorry I- the door wasn’t locked and-“ and Mare just about barreled into him.

 

“Joe, I can explain, he’s-“ she started, shaking from the adrenaline, ready to have to explain why she had a damn mermaid in her bathtub, but instead, all she saw was Stein sitting up, suds all in the tub thick enough to cover up anything that lurked beneath the water. He must have tipped over a bottle of her shampoo just when he’d heard Joe’s footsteps. It certainly helped that he’d shoved the shower curtain open a tad, too.

 

“Yes, you’re welcome to come in,” Stein said, dryly, rolling his shoulders. Some stray bubbles were scattered over his arms and chest, and she found that she couldn’t quite look away from it all and-

 

“Man, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you had a-” Joe said again, looking aghast and finally turning around. “I- I’ll be in the living room- Actually I should- I should just go. I’m sorry, Marie.”

 

“Joe, I-“

 

“Marie, there you are. Ready to join?” Stein asked, and Marie gasped, seeing how he was grinning that shit-eating grin that meant that he knew exactly what he was doing.

 

“Stein-“

 

“I’ll see you later, Marie,” Joe said, and when she looked at him, she spotted how tense his shoulders were as speedily made his way out. She waited until she heard the click that indicated that her door was closed before she whirled on Stein.

 

“What the hell?” she hissed. “You know how he’s going to take that!”

 

“What? That you have a man you’re fucking in your bathtub? Would you rather he saw the tail?” Stein asked casually, and Marie felt her cheeks warm.

 

“Can you- don’t call it that- we aren’t-“

 

“Why else would I be here?” he asked, painfully logical, and Marie looked at a loss for things to say. The fact that she, suddenly, was having way too many questions and way too many images was not something that she particularly wanted to dwell on. No way, no how, no sir. Not now.

 

“But-“ she started weakly, “he’s going to think. . .”

 

“He’s not going to ask you any more questions, at least,” Stein shrugged, and Marie closed her eyes, leaning against the doorframe.

 

“Jesus Christ, what am I going to do with you?” she asked, and she could practically feel the smugness radiating from him.

 

“Well, perhaps you can start by changing this water. It’s a tad soapy.”

* * *

 

She had grown so accustomed to simply walking into her bathroom to change his bandages. He really wasn’t particularly bad conversation. And, besides, he could be sweet and funny when he wanted to be. It was always rather anti-climactic. Almost like being married, in a way.

 

Except today. Marie’s shoulders popped as she stretched out. It had been a boring day at work, as usual, and she was ready to take a nap. For some reason, she was feeling particularly heavy and bloated. Nonetheless, she walked over to her fridge and picked out one of the fish wrapped in heavy paper that she’d gotten just yesterday. The fisherman had long since stopped asking if she wanted it gutted and deboned. Now, he knew better.

 

Marie grumbled at the crinkling of the paper, since it almost always gave her a headache, but padded her way over to the bathroom, anyway. When she knocked, as she always did, now, she waited for his voice to call out that it was okay before she popped it open with her hip.

 

“Brought sea bass,” she said, casually, yawning, and Stein sat up particularly rigidly when she walked in. Marie lifted a brow. “I guess you like sea bass-“

 

“Are you wounded?” he asked, urgent, his eyes heavy and intense and concerned as Marie’s lower lip dropped open.

 

“Wha- no! What would give you that idea?” she asked, setting the fish down into the sink and slowly coming over to him, brows furrowed. Maybe he was running a fever. Oh, god, maybe he had caught some kind of. . .of sea infection and she was killing him like she killed her first goldfish, Scampers, and she cried about it for months, and she would cry so much harder if she killed Stein, oh god, what had she done-

 

“I smell blood,” he said, and with that, she could make out the barely evident movement of his nostrils as he sniffed about. “It’s coming from you.”

 

“Blood? That’s weird. I didn’t even scrape myself on coral. . .today. . .” she said, but realization was slowly dawning on her as Stein kept sniffing about and she realized that he was leaning toward her, leaning toward the site of the bleeding, and it was rather. . .crotch-level on her. “Oh. Oh my god. Oh my god. Stop sniffing!”

 

“But you smell like-“

 

“I know what I smell like!” she said, and were she younger or not so comfortable with her body, perhaps she would be mortified. Instead, she only groaned. “It’s shark week,” she informed him, easily, and Stein’s ears seemed to prick up.

 

“. . .shark week?”

 

She realized a moment later just why that was a bad way to introduce him to the concept. But she was already too far gone to back out, now. Marie sighed, running a hand down her face and found out it was the hand she’d used to carry the fish. Ew.

 

“Just- eat your dinner. I’ll talk to you about it in- in a minute.”

 

“No,” he insisted. “If you are wounded and are attempting to play it off for whatever reason, that’s in poor taste. You should bandage yourself immediately.”

 

“Aww, pookie, I can’t believe you care,” she said, sarcastically, bending down to the cabinet she had under the sink to find her usual emergency box. She usually used a moon cup, but she felt more comfortable if she sterilized it before she did so, so pads were going to have to do.

 

“You bandaged me,” he said, simply, and Marie looked over at him as he stared at her intently, his brows furrowing when he saw her box. “Are those human gauze pads?”

 

“Uh. . .kind of?” she said, unwilling to admit that she had definitely been touched by his concern. Instead, she only sighed, standing up and giving him an even look. “You aren’t going to eat until I tell you, are you?”

 

Stein only shook his head, even though his eyes flicked over to the sea bass in the sink. It was almost cute, the way he was prioritizing her.

 

Okay, it was definitely cute. Who knew sharkboy could be such a Casanova if he wanted to be?

 

Marie ran a hand through her hair, undoing some knots before she sat down on her usual spot atop the toilet, lid closed, naturally.

 

“Lord, I can’t believe- okay, listen. Do. . .merpeople-“

 

“Stupid word-“

 

“Do merpeople have periods?”

 

“Periods of what?”

 

“Um. . .menstrual cycles?”

 

“You lost me.”

 

“Okay. Alright. Got it. Starting from scratch then. Do you know some human anatomy?”

 

She tried to ignore how his eyes flicked over her. “Yes.”

 

“Internal?”

 

He shrugged. “Somewhat.”

 

“Do you know what a uterus is?”

 

“The human’s baby pouch.”

 

“That’s. . .disturbing, but okay. Well, it acts as more than just a baby pouch.”

 

“Such as?”

 

“. . .an. . .empty.  . .baby pouch. So, when this. . .baby pouch-“

 

“You don’t have to keep saying baby pouch-“

 

“When this baby pouch has no baby to pouch, it sheds the baby baby pouch lining. And that comes out as. . .blood and various other organic material. For a few days.”

 

“. . .you are referring to your moon time?”

 

“. . .you call it our MOON time?”

 

“I believe it is a term your people used, initially.”

 

“That’s actually infinitely better than menstrual cycle, actually.”

 

“You could have simply informed me that you were experiencing moon time and I would have understood.”

 

“What? And then not have been concerned for me?” she asked, smirking. “It was sweet.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“So much care for little old me~”

 

“Shut. Up,” he said, once more, looking at the tiled wall behind her all of a sudden, his ears pinking, and Marie smiled.

 

“You must find this all so strange,” she said, watching as his eyes flicked back over at her before he occupied himself with scooping up the fish in the sink.

 

“Not strange,” he corrected. “Merely fascinating.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Human women can bleed for a prolonged length of time and survive. I was washed ashore because of one laceration. It’s fascinating. You accomplish things I would die from. ”

 

Marie didn’t miss the slight awe that sparked in his eyes, and this time, she was the one who felt the blush lick at her skin.

 

“Uh, well- it’s not all that. And- I mean, some human women don’t bleed. They don’t have uteruses. And some men do,” she corrected him, gently. Stein seemed to think for a moment before nodding.

 

“That’s even more fascinating,” he admitted, before unwrapping the fish, inspecting it for a moment, and chomping down. Marie breathed a laugh, not knowing when the habit got endearing more than disgusting.

 

“Mmmmhm, Mr. Fascinating. Glad you’re enjoying your dinner.”

 

Stein said something to her that was mostly muffled by the fish stuffed in his mouth and Marie laughed again, looking at him with soft eyes.

 

It was only when she realized he looked up at her with a matching expression that she felt something in her chest throb.

* * *

 

Sometimes, she thought she was getting way, waaaaay too comfortable with him. And it was weird, because just a few short weeks ago, a couple of months ago, they were yelling at each other and trying to find a way to talk to each other.

 

And now-

 

well.

 

You tend to get a tad too comfortable after living with someone else for a while, but this was just ridiculous.

 

"So. . .uh. . ." she said, looking over his wound and trying to keep her hands distracted, hemming and hawing.

 

 "Hm?"

 

"I mean, just for. . .um. . .science. . ."

 

"What?"

 

 "You know how regular sharks- not that you're not regular! Or- uh, normal! I mean, you're special but not- not in a bad way, you know?"

 

 "Marie."

 

"I just wanted to know. . .if. . .you know. . ."

 

"I do not know."

 

Marie finally sucked in a big gulp of air. Okay. Time to pull up the big girl panties.

 

"I mean, sharks usually have. . .two. .."

 

". . .Two?"

 

"You know."

 

 "I-"

 

 "Two," she said, gesturing to the area around her hips while her face burned bright pink.

 

". . .fins?" he asked, but she could tell by the amused expression that he knew exactly what she was asking.

 

"No- you- oh, come on, you KNOW."

 

"Are you asking for yourself, or a friend?" he asked, draping his arms across the back of the tub and giving her a suggestive look.

 

"I-"

 

"I believe I remember there was a particular tab on your computer. Bad Dragon or-"

 

"We don't talk about-"

 

"You had one of them bookmarked-"

 

"Please, I just-"

 

"It was also rather. ..shark related-"

 

"Just answer the question, oh god."

 

"So I can be a part of your dildo collect-"

 

"I do NOT have a COLLECTION-"

 

"Your order history says otherwise-"

 

"Just. Answer. The. Question."

 

"Or what?" he asked, looking all too smug, and Marie glared at him, looking particularly nonthreatening considering the flounder she had in her hands.

 

"Or I won't feed you."

 

"Oh? Are you referencing feeding me fish or would I eat something else?" he asked, looking at her with an expression crossed between suggestive and deadpan, making her feel visual dissected as his eyes flicked downward.

 

"I- oh my god, I am never talking to you AGAIN. Do you hear me? Ever."

 

"Marie-"

 

"Just eat your flounder and shush. Lest you forget you are in MY bathroom."

 

"It's a tad cramped."

 

"Nice to know," she grumbled, throwing him the fish and watching as it plopped into the water, floating.

 

"Yes."

 

"You could have at least answered my question," she pouted, folding her arms over her bust and leaning against the doorframe. Stein lifted a brow at her before scooping up the flounder, grinning at her, all sharp teeth and mischievous eyes.

 

"I just did."

* * *

 

She’d offered up another movie after she’d inspected his cut. He was getting awfully bored in that tub, even with her company, but they’d exhausted quite a few of her selections. Including a shark documentary. And yet another viewing of The Little Mermaid. Which he felt immensely betrayed by.

 

“I am still entirely offended by how grossly incorrect that film was,” Stein muttered, folding his arms as Marie turned on another film. He hadn’t shut up about The Little Mermaid for weeks, and she always got such a kick out of it.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Fish don’t talk. Mmmmhm. We’ve gone over this, before.”

 

“They should have put more research into it,” he defended, and Marie’s laugh seemed like a bell.

 

“Oh? What were they meant to do? Go fishing for one of you guys?”

 

“We would never be so foolish as to be reeled in in such a way,” he said, and Marie nodded, trying to keep a serious expression.

 

“Oh, naturally. Yes.”

 

The look he gave her was one of skepticism and it completely broke her resolve, making her giggle. “You laugh at suffering,” he accused, but she could tell he was just being a drama queen.

 

“Oh, come on, Frank! It’s just a children’s film! You liked the songs well enough. You still hum them.”

 

“I do no such thing.”

 

“Our rooms are really close together~” she sing-songed. “I hear everything in here.”

 

“Lies. A complete disregard for my privacy.”

 

Marie shook her head. “Anyway, you’ve been pretty hush hush about everything that had happened to you in that ocean. What makes you think any research we did would get us anywhere?”

 

Stein shrugged, his loping shoulders making the same odd, rounded shape they always did, to accommodate for his fin, and he turned around in the tub, clearly trying to get comfortable as he laid on his belly. “Then you should not make stories of things that are not your tales to tell,” he informed her easily, and Marie opened her mouth to make a comment but shut it again, only shaking her head. He had bitched about the state of the sea plants for well over ten minutes, before. It was time to cut him a break.

 

But, speaking of cut. . .

 

Marie’s eye wandered over the back he had exposed to her. She knew he was covered in scars, not just the large one on his side that spread out like a hand, a palm-print of shining pink scar-tissue, but also old wounds. Ones that must have gaped and bled out for ages, ones that looked only like small scratches. They were healed oddly, raised in some places and still pink and angry looking in others. The scar on his side, however, was healing up nicely.

 

Soon, he wouldn’t need her at all. Wouldn’t need this bathroom or her help.

 

Why did that sting?

 

Stein looked over his shoulder, stretching his back and letting his fin have some breathing room before he noticed that’s he was staring. “My face is up here,” he said, in a deadpan, quoting one of the other movies they had seen. Since introducing him to the internet and Netflix, she’d spent most of her time talking to him and watching other movies, to the point where she had a cushion shoved under her cabinet sink. He’d even had some of her ice-cream.

 

“Hm? Oh, sorry,” she said, absentmindedly. And she realized that, in likely only a few more days, he wouldn’t need any more medical assistance from her. The first aid kit would be put away and then. . .

 

Then.

 

“If you have a question,” he broke in, “you should ask.”

 

“What?” she asked, tearing her gaze from the long diagonal scar that ran across his torso.

 

“You’re staring.”

 

“Sorry,” she told him, sighing through her nose. She had been thinking more and more about the fact that something had to happen, and soon. She’d gotten so accustomed to him that she just- she didn’t know much of what to do.

 

“That isn’t a question.”

 

“I don’t want to pry,” she admitted. “You told me to mind my business before, remember?”

 

Stein flipped over once more, sloshing the water around in the tub. She used to be the one to drain it, but now Stein knew how to maintain it all on his own. And, yet, even as she saw the evidence of the TLC she’d bestowed upon him, in the way he’d thickened, slightly, from being able to eat better, in the way that his scar was healing, in the general light on his face, she also saw the negative affects. Where he was once cut muscle, clean and sharp, it had softened with inactivity in the bathtub. His arms were cramped in close to his sides, his tail swishing constantly so as not to fall asleep.

 

He had to go. And soon. And he would take his secrets with him. Did she even know him at all?

 

“How about an eye for an eye?” he offered, looking at her just as deeply as she was looking at him.

 

“Huh?” she asked, finally tugged out of her musings, and he shrugged once more, gesturing to her face.

 

“Perhaps that was a tad on the nose. You show me yours, I show you mine?” he offered, and she was tempted to tell him that that didn’t mean what he thought it meant, or that it could be misconstrued. But she figured he already knew, what with his jabs at her web-browser history. It was not a crime for her to watch porn, thank you very much.

 

“My eye,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. His curiosity must have ran deep.

 

“Mmm,” he hummed in reply. “Though, I warn you, I’ve no sob story to tell you.”

 

“Good, because neither do I.”

 

“Why not tell me earlier, then?” he asked, tilting his head. His hair fell into his face, and she had the distinct urge to brush it back. Perhaps away. She breathed in deeply.

 

“It wasn’t your business. Plus, you were a total asshole to me.”

 

The melancholy mood broken, Stein snorted. “You weren’t sunshine and rainbows, either. Almost killed me.”

 

“Oh- shut up,” she said, pouting. “When will you let that go?”

 

“Never,” he replied, the smirk etching itself on his face so instantly that she was powerless to help the spark of attraction it brought about in her.

 

“Just- shhhh,” she said, folding her arms over one another. “If you must know-“

 

“I don’t.”

 

“What?” she asked, blinking at him. She’d thought he’d been interested?

 

“I don’t have to know. If it is a private matter, you have the right to such.”

 

Marie only blinked at him for a moment, taking in the ridiculous sight of him in her bathtub before she smiled.

 

“It is. But I think we know each other well enough, right?”

 

“I should hope so. From the films you show me, people only piss in front of each other when they’re married-“

 

“We are not- I have no other choices- Frank! Stop laughing! We’re trying to have a moment!”

 

“Are we?” he chuckled, stretching his arms up and over his head, arching his back. Her eyes immediately came to his chest. He might have softened, somewhat, less bone and muscle and now more thickness, though still clearly lean, but it wasn’t a bad sight. And no one could blame a girl for looking.

 

“If you want to make those kinds of jokes, you might just have to marry me,” she said, and Stein’s chuckles only deepened, somewhat.

 

“If that’s what you’d prefer,” he said, so casually, not realizing what it did to her stomach, suddenly full of butterflies.

 

“Don’t joke about things like that,” she said, quietly, and when he lazily opened his eyes, previously closed from stretching, he regarded her for a long moment, as though he were memorizing her.

 

“Fine,” he agreed, and she leaned against the sink, fingers coming up to her cheek.

 

“Anyway, if you want to know. . .I lost it when I was just a kid. Sixteen. Car accident.”

 

“Any other injuries?” he asked, looking her over. Marie shrugged.

 

“Few scars. On my stomach, mostly. Had to have some skin grafts on my collar bones. Broke my arm, too.”

 

“Walked out after that, hm?”

 

“Took a while in the hospital, actually. Not much walking happening at the time,” she divulged. “It’s why I can’t stand jello, now. Healing sucks.”

 

He nodded, eyes seemingly flicking about on her, trying to find the scarwork, and after a second, Marie bit at her lip, echoing his words from earlier. “If you have a question, ask.”

 

“May I see the scars?” he asked, suddenly so formal, this old, odd dryness coming from him, reminding her of an old movie. And she found herself nodding, bringing her hand to her shirt and lifting the hem up, turning so he could see the scars on her stomach. Stein looked at her belly for a long time, an amount of time that, in the past, with partners, she’d been self conscious about. She may be a swimmer, and a damn good one, and she may run and lift weights and do her best to exercise, but there was softness there that couldn’t be removed. Stein, for his part, however, only smiled wryly.

 

“We match,” he said, and she found her heart fluttering high in her chest, climbing up her throat. The affection in the words was almost too much for her, so she chuckled nervously.

 

“Yeah. I guess we do.”

 

“Finding me on the beach hit close to home, hm?”

 

“A bit. . .I’m not much in the habit of picking up strays, you know? But. . .I thought you needed help.”

 

“I’d had worse,” he said. “It was from a fight,” he divulged without her even having to ask. “Not particularly exciting.”

 

“And the rest of them?”

 

“Other fights.”

 

“You sure seem to fight a lot,” she said without thinking much. “What about the one on your back? It stretches all the way to your chest.”

 

At that, his eyes seemed to darken. “Memento,” he said, simply, and Marie looked at him for a long while, not realizing when she’d inched forward.

 

“From who. . .what?”

 

“Nothing that The Little Mermaid would be comfortable depicting.”

 

Marie nodded, slowly, before looking at the long-healed wound with a sad eye. “You healed all by yourself? Alone?”

 

Stein rolled his wrists, cracking them. “There wasn’t much else to do.”

 

“You don’t have to do that, anymore,” she said, mouth moving without her brain letting it catch up. “If you ever need help- I- I want to help you.”

 

The stumbles at the end, when she started losing her steam, made her feel foolish, but Stein only tilted his head in her direction, and something came into his eyes that she had only seen short sparks of, before. And- lord, no one had ever looked at her like that. Like she was some kind of. . .awe inspiring creature, glowing.

 

“Shall I wash ashore at every wound?”

 

“If you- if you want. I can wait for you.”

 

“Every day? Even if I don’t appear?”

 

“I- I want you to know this is a place you’re allowed in, no matter what. I’m here for you, Stein,” she said, painfully, vulnerably honest.

 

The way he looked at her was too new, too tender. She almost wanted to go back to the banter, to the jokes, the antics, the silly games. She wanted to touch his scars- with fingertips, with lips- so tired of being arms’ length. Instead, she only swallowed, dropping her hand so that it could rest on the edge of the tub, where his own hand was resting.

 

“You don’t have to do it alone, okay? I promised I'd help you."

 

When he didn’t answer, she felt like a fool. When he nudged his hand closer to hers, fingers brushing, she felt electric.


	4. Chapter 4

She knew, for too long, now, that he would have to go.

 

And, really, she should be happy. Shouldn’t she? She’d done her job.

 

Marie loaded up another movie, her laptop balanced on the sink as she looked over his wound and realized that, for the most part, it was all scar tissue. And Stein seemed to notice it, too. Because he looked at her and then at the wound, noticing how her hands wouldn’t leave his torso.

 

It was time.

 

And she knew she wasn’t ready for any of it.

\---

 

It had been a while since she’d gone to the beach at night. A very, very long while. The last time was- well, when she’d found him. She’d joked, as they went there, Stein finally not hurt by being jostled, finally healed, that if she found another washed up merman to house in her bathtub, she’d just quit. And he’d made some equally as snarky comment, but her mind was elsewhere.

 

Even now, it was elsewhere, watching him absentminded. The second he’d hit the water, he knew instantly what to do, and he stretched out in the waves, his entire body moving like shadows. She bit her lip as she stood, fully clothed, at the shoreline as he swam out a few feet and smacking his tail over the waves as though to splash her, even from so far away.

 

She fidgeted with the strap of her top. She’d put on her bikini beneath it, but she wasn’t expecting on doing much of anything at all, really. It was just a last minute kind of thing. The water was cold, no doubt, and rocky. It was nighttime, after all, and she knew the bite of the water.

 

“I don’t bite,” Stein called out from his place in the ocean, clearly teasing. He must have seen the bathing suit she’d exposed by fiddling with her shirt. Probably expecting her to swim.

 

“Don’t or won’t?” she asked in response, digging her toes into the sand and flicking her eye up to look at him as he backstroked closer to her so she wouldn’t have to yell.

 

“Which is the answer you would prefer?”

 

She rolled her eye, breathing a laugh before she continued playing with the cloth. Seeming to sense that something was the matter, he swam in closer, using the tide so it seemed as though he was effortlessly gliding over to her.

 

“Marie?” he asked, settling close to the shore so he could better observe her.

 

Now or never, she supposed. She blinked at him, offering a soft, nervous smile. “Yeah?”

 

“Are you troubled?”

 

Her lips twitched up higher at that, feeling eased by his concern. “No,” she said, and she wasn’t surprised to find that it was true. “No, I’m fine.”

 

And with that, she finally let her hands fall to the hem of her shirt, lifting it up and off of her body.

* * *

 

He felt foolish. There was no other way to describe it. Foolish in looking at her as she undressed, foolish in feeling a shiver of pleasure from the fact. For Neptune’s sake, it was bare shoulders and a half naked torso. Not exactly revolutionary.  And it wasn’t as though she were stripping for his gaze, either.  

 

Rather, it was that she was baring herself. To him. Willingly.

 

But feeling some way about that was idiotic.

 

Her hands came to the front of her breasts where a knot kept the fabric of her top together, and he didn’t even want to blink as she slowly tugged at the material, before she shifted nervously and let her hands fall to the scarf she had knotted around her hips, acting as a skirt. In no time, that came away, too, and she was left in her neon-coral bikini, more exposed to his gaze than he had ever seen her, before.

 

At least, in a way that wasn’t barging into the bathroom as though they’d been married for a decade and a half.

 

She shivered from the breeze, and he had never felt the yearning for legs until he saw her just out of reach.

 

“Stein?” she asked, almost swallowing when he looked up at her and there was something almost hungry in his eyes.

 

“Hm?”

 

“Is the water cold?”

 

Was she trying to tease him? He almost wished she would just hurry up with it and walk in but he couldn’t lie to her.

 

“Somewhat,” he said, and his throat felt dry, his lips chapped.

 

Marie’s smile seemed to widen, her full mouth curved almost as much as her body was. “I guess I’ll have to warm up when I get in, huh?”

 

He could only nod, watching as she stepped forward, leaving her clothes on the sand, barely covering them up. Not that anyone would show up.  

 

There was a spark of possessiveness, unwarranted, that came through him with that thought. Good. He didn’t want anyone else to see her so vulnerable, the way she was walking to the water, hips swaying. In all the time he’d lived with her, by her, he was accustomed to her when she was in pajamas, or her work clothes. Soft t-shirts that she’d complain about when they got wet, or skirts that hit at her knee. Surely, others had seen her this bare. But he hadn’t. And he didn’t know what it was about her that made him feel like his body was on fire.

 

But he wanted to touch her. He wanted to touch her so bad.

 

~~Was that wrong, for him to want to kiss a human girl? To glide his hands over her?~~

 

He thinks his entire body was coiled tight enough to snap when she finally stepped up to him, standing in moonlight, barely a foot away from the water.

 

His green, unearthly eyes skimmed over her form until he settled on the scars she’d shown him, prior. And, surely, she was trying to be sultry when she went to walk into the water, but her yelp broke the tension, and he snorted.

 

“Smooth,” he told her, and she pouted at him.

 

“Same old Stein, in bathwater and out of it,” she jabbed, and he only gave her a creepy grin, to which she shook her head. No one found him endearing. No one. And, yet, this random human woman did. After a moment, her smile softened, and she looked far more at ease, more casual when she finally walked her way into the water until it was up to her ankles. Then, her knees. He found it a shame when the dark water came around her hips, hiding his view from her, and she shivered, but she was still too far away for him to comfortably swim up.

 

When the sea was at the bottom of her breasts, he threw caution to the wind, flicking his tail and diving into the water so that he was entirely out of sight for her.

 

He could almost smell her confusion, but from beneath the waves, he could see her hands reaching out, as though trying to find him through touch, her torso shaking, her knees locked and trying not to be swayed by the ocean. As he swam up to her, keeping himself as close to the sand as he could, he was tempted to run his touch up her leg.

 

He refrained. Tails were the closest equivalent he could think of, and no one would ever touch someone else’s tail without permission. Instead, his hands came to the bottom of the ocean, pushing himself up until he was right in front of her, sending seawater splashing in her face as she gasped.

 

“Stein! God, you scared the crap out of me!” she said, reaching out as though to smack him.

 

Up close, he could see that she was blushing. Flushed entirely though the liquid had brought her skin to gooseflesh, brought her to shudders.

 

He wasn’t stupid, nor was he naïve. He knew this wasn’t what she had planned, originally. He knew something- though he had no word for it- had sparked between them. And he knew that, now, standing in his domain, in an uncomfortable situation, she was with him because she trusted him and wanted to be beside him.

 

So, he gave her a razor-sharp grin before he grabbed both her arms and tugged, forcing her forward until the water engulfed her shoulders and then her head, and she was submerged entirely, kicking in the deeper waters until he pulled her up. She looked a damn sight, her eye glaring, strands of her hair coming over her full mouth as she sputtered.

 

“What the hell, Stein?”

 

“You aren’t shivering anymore,” he pointed out, and Marie stopped, her eyebrows going up as though finally taking in the fact that she had adapted to the temperature.

 

“. . .oh,” she said, kicking to stay afloat.

 

He gave her a lazy smile, swimming circles around her a few times as they simply existed together. He was tempted to glide underwater again, this time only deep enough so that just his fin was exposed, and he knew she would hum the Jaws theme and laugh.

 

He liked her laugh. It made him smile. He didn’t know when it started doing that, only that it, she, did. And he had found it so hard to smile, before.

 

 Marie was sun-kissed skin in moonlight and golden hair that was dripping over her shoulders. She had brought him in and put up with him. She laughed at his jokes. She found him funny.

 

He didn’t know where they’d go from there.

 

But maybe he knew where they could go that night.

 

“Would you like to go in deeper?” he asked, his eyes flicking over her face as water dripped over her chin.

 

She seemed to smile at that, bringing her hands in front of her. “Only if you promise to bring me back,” she said, and when he grabbed her hands, he pulled her to his side where he could wrap an arm around her waist, not willing to tell her that he might not want to bring her back to that shore, because he wasn’t foolish enough to convince himself it wouldn’t be goodbye.

 

She was so warm. Against him, he could almost imagine he’d feel that heat, again.

* * *

 

The water only got colder the deeper he brought her, and when she shivered against him, he knew he had to bring her back to land. He was built to withstand the temperatures, used to the colder waters up farther north, but she was human, and so delicate in her structure.

 

He didn’t bring her back to where they had started. Not because he was lost, either. He knew his way around the sea. It called to him, spoke to him in a language he would never be able to translate. No, he would never be lost so long as the ocean was talking to him.

 

He brought her to his favorite cove on purpose. The prettiest one, in his opinion, where the green of the grass surrounding the sand was as bright as his eyes, where the rocks came up for protection from the wind and the water was gentle on the white sand. He never chose it for the aesthetic, of course, but for the privacy. Now, however, he could actually appreciate it. Marie’s eye had widened when he swam up.

 

He had been watching her face to see her reaction, and when she gasped, her hold on him tightening, he was pleased.

 

“Oh my god. . .it’s gorgeous here,” she whispered, and he continued swimming up until her feet hit the sand and she could stand for the first time in over an hour. Her legs wobbled for a moment before they found their strength and she stood, still clutching him. “How did you find this place?”

 

He grinned, his eyes half-lidded. “Pursuing lunch,” he commented, and Marie’s laugh was welcome.

 

When her feet were on land, she began to step forward.

 

There was barely ten feet of sand before the grass began, and beyond the grass, massive, looming rocks that hid them from the rest of the world. If she wanted to get away, he had certainly provided a place where that could happen.

 

After a moment, he realized she was dragging him, and he was almost surprised. As he looked at her, he watched the water get shallower and shallower, her body slowly exposing itself to him. He watched as her shoulders came into view, the curve of her spine, her ass, her thighs, her knees. When he was sure his belly would start to scrape over the shore, she stopped, the water barely up to her calves before she let go of him, turning around and promptly plopping down. Graceless. Marie stuck her tongue out at him as she seated herself, her knees popping up out of the water before she fell back, her arms flying above her head as she stretched out, taking in the sky. Here, the water was warmer, but still not warm.

 

His eyebrows went up, her behavior unexpected. But he found that he was smiling, at ease.

 

He grabbed her arm as leverage to bring himself up to her, catching himself on his powerful arms so that he could hover over her, making sure that his tail wasn’t scratching her skin. She breathed in, her cheeks pink.

 

“Are you gonna sing to me like in The Little Mermaid?” she asked, fluttering her lashes in exaggeration.

 

“That stupid movie, again,” he snorted, “As though I fit the bill of a siren,” he quipped, and she brought one hand to his shoulder, the other to his cheek. His hair had grown out long and it must have been in his face because she brushed some of his wet locks away with her fingers, her smile softening.

 

“Funny,” she started, “you sure lured me out to sea.”

 

“You came willingly,” he replied, and he didn’t know when his voice had started getting deeper, lower, quieter. All he knew was that she could hear him and that was all that mattered. He hadn’t done anything like this before. And it was dangerous, too. They shouldn’t-

 

They really, truly shouldn’t. It would be in poor taste to get so attached.

 

But weren’t they already?

 

“Yes,” Marie said, her own voice getting softer, her eye flicking down to his mouth as he moved closer to her face, almost as though it was natural for him to gravitate toward her. “I did.”

 

They were so close, he thinks they were sharing breath. Her breasts brushed against his chest, her hand cupping the back of his neck, and he wished he wasn’t supporting himself on both hands so he could just touch her like he’d been yearning to. His whole body just wanted to come over her, be skin to skin with her, drink her in.

 

She lifted her chin and her breath smelled sweet, like the candy she had eaten at home (when did he start considering it home, he wondered?), and he never liked toffee but he wanted to taste it on her mouth, regardless.

 

Slowly, as though giving her every moment to turn away, he brought his lips over her own, hovering. He was almost trembling with the effort and his tail swished nervously, his body on edge, until Marie’s hold on the back of his neck tightened and he felt her press him down so he could properly kiss her and he felt like all the tension both drained away and intensified.

 

In a way, it was almost as thought this was what he was spiraling toward for seemingly all his life, looking for a place to call home, and it felt like home, really, when their mouths brushed together and Marie’s leg was bent at the knee, bumping against his side. He slowly brought himself down onto his elbows so he could cup her face, breathing her in.

 

“Marie,” he muttered, and she hummed in response, slowly threading her hand through his hair as they pulled apart for short gasps of air, bumping noses and brushing lips. Marie giggled as he wriggled about, slightly, his tail scratching against the soft skin of her legs, and he paused immediately, looking down at her flushed face, the way she was breathing so hard. The sharp smile that came over him was impossible to hold down, and Marie only giggled once more.

 

“Don’t stop kissing me,” she said, tugging at his hair slightly before she gently brought him back over her mouth, stretching up so she could connect them once more.

 

Honestly, he didn’t need to be told twice.

* * *

 

Nothing lasted forever. Marie knew that from her pets. From her friendships. From every relationship she’d ever had, in the past. Marie knew that from her parents, from her University. All that starts must end. In whatever length of time.

 

Eventually, he had to stop kissing her, because she was cold. Eventually, he had to bring her back, because that was home, to her. She had a job, and a house, bills to pay, University to attend later. And he couldn’t stay in a bathtub.

 

So.

 

She watched him from the shore, the sad smile painted on her face curving like a slice of moon. But she knew he was so much more at ease in that Ocean. And he didn’t belong cramped in her bathroom, trying to make space for his elbows, his tail swishing, his fins twitching, something both amused and faraway on his face.

 

Now, it was just open. He popped his head up from the waves and she watched as a genuine grin came over his face, exposing his sharp teeth. To think, she’d traced her tongue over those-

 

It was not the time to think about that. This was it, damnit. And he might have kissed her, might have wanted her, but this was it. She shivered slightly, wishing that she’d brought herself a towel, but she hadn’t thought that far ahead. She didn’t know why, exactly. Maybe because she didn’t want to consider the inevitability of the goodbye that would have to come.

 

Stein must have noticed that she wasn’t smiling, because he dipped back under the waves, his tail the last thing that she saw before he was gone from sight. Something panged within her, but it only intensified when she noticed that he’d allowed his fin over the water, and she laughed, but it was watery.

 

Now was the time when she should have been humming the damn Jaws theme, again. Now was not the time for her to remember every single time she’d balanced her laptop precariously on her knees so they could stream videos together and watch movies and she could make stupid comments like ‘Can you eat popcorn or will you get sick?’ to which he’d flick some water into her face and she’d threaten to put him back on the fish food.

 

How was she going to occupy her time, now? How was she meant to get up in the morning and remember a moment too late that she had someone in her bathroom and so she had to find a different way to take a shower?

 

Marie eeped quietly when Stein popped up from under the water once more, shaking his head and allowing his wet hair into his face, all too close to shore.

 

“Don’t look too happy, now,” he said, dryly, bobbing slightly with the water. The ocean was calmer, tonigh, than usualt. There were some nights that it was wild, stormy, waiting to swallow anything that dared step in whole.

 

But it was as though it was allowing them their moment, now.

 

“How is your side feeling?” she asked, instead. And Stein tilted his head to the side, flipping into his back and exposing his belly to her, bringing his palm to the side.

 

“Seems fine. You’re an acceptable nurse,” he praised, trailing his fingers over the new scar that he had to tell of the story. Maybe he’d find someone to tell it to. She almost hoped he did. Find someone to inform that he spent several weeks in a bathtub, being slowly and relatively poorly nursed to health by a random human woman who’d dragged him into her bathroom.

 

“I’m glad. So. . .I guess that means you’re good to go, right?” she asked, and he seemed to stop everything he was doing, ensuring that his gaze was zoomed in on her, nodding slowly.

 

“The bathtub didn’t much suit me,” he said, by way of answer.

 

“No, it didn’t,” she agreed, feeling as though the answer was a lame one, and that he, himself, would realize that the truth was that she wanted him to stay but how could she ever truly be that selfish, in the end?

 

He was miserable in the bathroom, that much was true. She could tell that he hated being dependant on anyone else, but theirs was a relationship that just. . .seemed to work beyond any of the odds.

 

“Will you come back here?” she finally blurted out, wanting to bring her fingers to her lips, remember the feeling of his chapped mouth on hers, warming her from the inside out, toes to crown.

 

“Would you want me to return?” he threw back at her, and there was no hesitancy when she said ‘Yes’.

 

He looked at her for a long, long moment. Too long. An ocean personified. And he nodded.

 

And he didn’t say goodbye.

* * *

 

Every day.

 

Everyday Marie would walk the beach, again, flip flops in hand, and the breeze always felt as though it were so much warmer than it had been the last time she’d had the time to wander the shore, but she knew she was just imagining that.

 

It had been two weeks. Something gaped and ached inside of her, remembering. It felt too far ago, as though a hazy kind of memory that she kept trying to reach out and grasp and solidify more and more, but it only turned to smoke between her fingers, slipping away.

 

Like water.

 

Marie’s sarong was tied at her hips as it always was, but she didn’t find much joy in walking the beach, that night. Even Joe had made the comment that she didn’t seem happy when she’d showed up to work that day, shaking her hair out of her ponytail and expecting some snark from a voice decidedly more deadpan and raspy than Joe’s.

 

But it never came. She was alone, again.

 

Or, rather, not alone. She’d never been truly alone. She’d always had friends and coworkers and acquaintances and even boys who were interested in dating her but-

 

But they weren’t like him. They didn’t match her sarcasm or her strange habits. They didn’t challenge her at every turn. They weren’t a pain in her ass, a thorn in her side that laughed so gratingly but somehow so welcoming, or who asked stupid, redundant questions that made her second guess her desire to have children and realize that she made the right choice in not pursuing elementary education.

 

Somehow, no one was quite like Stein. And that was good in so many ways, because the man was a headache if she had ever had one. But he could also be funny, and kind, and concerned. He asked her about her day and genuinely cared about the answer. He saw her when her hair was a mess and her makeup smeared and when she was in hideous pajama sets that did nothing flattering to her figure and then he-

 

He still kissed her.

 

Marie’s knuckles came up to her lips as she sighed and decided she was done walking. She plopped down on the sand, bringing her knees up to her chest and dropping her flip flops beside her, looking out at the ocean. The moon was reflecting off of the surface of the water, casting a beautiful, shimmering sheen to the liquid.

 

But all she could think about was coming there with him. When he swam her out deeper deeper deeper until she had no idea where she was. She’d never be able to find that cove, again. She’d spend too long looking out at the ocean, wondering and waiting and remembering and eventually, that gaping hole in her chest would stop feeling so sticky and hopeless and she could finally fucking move on.

 

Even a fish broke up with her. Damn, what was so wrong with her?

 

Marie rested her cheek against her knee, fluttering her eyes closed. At night, it was all so peaceful, save for the crash of the waves upon the shore. For a moment, she almost wanted to stretch her legs out and let the slightest tickle of seafoam come over the tips of her toes, but that would require movement. And movement, at that very moment, felt impossible.

 

She didn’t want to do much of anything.

 

Still, at the very least, the cold spray of the water would mean feeling something. She hadn’t realized that she’d invested so much of herself into Stein, so much of her heart and her time and her hopes into a man that she knew would never be able to truly be with her. Who was she trying to fool from the very beginning? It wasn’t as though she’d found him and decided he was husband material, of course, but it still stung, damnit, knowing that she’d found him and then became so fucking attached despite knowing it would end like this. With her, alone, on a beach, looking out into the long stretch, the expanse of water that went on for miles and miles and miles and he could be anywhere, anyway. What was she doing looking for him in some mythical, romanticized horizon? She’d wanted him to be free and now he was, damnit.

 

She should be happy. She _should._

 

At least _somewhere_ in her, she should be happy. Not this sticky, angry jealousy at being second best to the ocean of all places. Not this upset maw that threatened to leave her numb.

 

She lay back on the sand, letting her legs stretch out and feeling the ocean lick against her feet.

 

It was icy, freezing as anything.

 

And she had nothing to keep her warm.

* * *

 

For the first month, she’d return, as always, as ever, to the same sliver of beach, where the waves crashed harder than elsewhere, where the rocks could slice your feet. Here, the ocean was never what called to her, or the sand. It wasn’t the rocks or the moon. It wasn’t the night, when she’d wander, looking around.

 

It was always only for herself, for hopes, for wishes.

 

And for the first month, just as she always returned, she would always leave, disappointed.

* * *

 

 The truth was that Marie knew how to pine, but she didn’t know how to stop existing in light of that. Because man with a tail or not, chemistry or not, she had a life to live. She got a new laptop, she bought cute clothes, she even went on a date or five. Life had to go on. If he wanted to kiss her and run, well, that was his damn problem. She was a catch, pardon the pun, and, sure, she may look into her bathroom and promise she’d change the curtain but never did, and she may still rewatch some of the films that she’d watched with him, but that was because those things were hers first and objects of her memory, second.

 

The beach, the place she’d gone to for weeks and weeks, looking out, watching the water, was a place she rarely went, anymore. It was the off season, now, so few people went. Lifeguarding was a seasonal job for her, and she’d gone back to university and worked part time in a small diner downtown.

 

Sometimes, she realized, good times were like seafoam. Beautiful and frothy, and then dissipating in the blink of an eye.


	5. Chapter 5

_Nine Months Later_

* * *

 

“Hey, Baywatch!” Joe called as he ran up to her, and she swore that, sometimes, things didn’t actually ever change. She groaned, blowing some of her hair out of her face. She thought maybe she’d manage to escape considering it was the end of the watching shifts and it was getting dark, the sign that the beach was about to be evacuated. Some people would be off making bonfires or getting drunk and, surely, someone would come and catch them or say something about how they shouldn’t be on the beach, for the most part, it was already getting kind of deserted, and Marie had started heading in a different direction than the crowds. But, of course, her luck had always been rather poor.

 

“Joe, I told you not to call me that,” she told him, rolling her eyes and looking off to the side, wondering of one of the other lifeguards on duty was going to come up and save her. Not that she wasn’t up to bantering with Joe, but not when he had that ‘I was wondering. . . ‘ look on his face. He was always wondering if she just wanted to go out somewhere. Maybe on a date date.

 

Especially after she’d let it slip that the man that he’d encountered in her bathtub was- well, off somewhere else. And he took that as an invitation.

 

And- okay, maybe she should take it, because she hadn’t gotten any in forever and all her speed dates were depressing, but Joe was just-

 

it wasn’t that he wasn’t her type. Maybe she was just holding onto something.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Joe said, running his fingers through his buzzcut and smiling at her, looking kind of dopey but in a sort of endearing way. “Look, I was wondering. . .”

 

“Joe- I’m just- I’m busy, tonight.”

 

“So, tomorrow?” he asked, looking hopeful, and she should have known that he’d find a loophole. He’d been trying to get together with her for forever.

 

“I’ll let you know if what I’m doing tonight means I can’t,” she said, diplomatically. Her time in high school when she’d negotiate between arguing friends finally paid off. She could see Joe’s face drop, slightly, but, for goodness sake, the man was attractive enough and had a chest like a cannon. He could find someone else to fixate on.

 

“Okay. Just let me know. You’ve got my number, right?” he asked, and Marie let a smile come onto her face, but it didn’t feel particularly genuine.

 

“Yeah, of course. I’ll call,” she assured, and Joe seemed to think that was good enough of an answer, because he nodded and went off to the exits, leaving Marie standing around by herself, soaking up the remainder of the sunlight. She sighed.

 

What she was doing back was easy enough to explain. Being a lifeguard paid decent enough money and especially now that Uni had gotten out and she was further into debt, simply working the diner just wasn’t going to cut it. Plus, she knew the people here and she had the training. It made her feel nice to know that she was helping out people, or that she could were the situation to arise.

 

What she was doing back at night, wandering back to the place where, in her mind, it all began, well, that was less pragmatic.

 

So, she was a romantic at heart, sue her. It was the anniversary of the first day she met him, and try hard as she could, she just couldn’t scrub him away. She’d kissed other men since he’d been gone, but none of them felt like they sparked her up inside like he did. And she’d gone on dates but none of them had the wit or the banter. She wasn’t comfortable enough with them to talk scars, and she didn’t want to talk about her eye.

 

It got lonely. Azusa called, of course, finally done with her trip across East Asia, where she’d maybe send a postcard every once in a blue moon, but she wasn’t coming back to Australia and instead was going to spend time with her family in Japan. And with Azusa gone, for even longer than before, now, Marie found that the people she could be completely comfortable with had dwindled down.

 

So, there she was, again. Walking the beach as it darkened and cooled, her scarf tied around her hips, her phone in one hand and her flip flops in another.

 

She didn’t expect anything. For a month she’d return to the same place she first met him, thinking that his nod had meant that he would come back. Maybe that they’d see each other every day, rain or shine or storm, and kiss, and she’d go into the water even if it were freezing. He’d take her to pretty places that she would never have been able to go to, otherwise, because she could swim but not like that, and she’d marvel at these small gasps of land in wide expanses of ocean that he’d found, places untouched by human hands or legs.

 

And, for a month, as she came looking for him, she’d leave, upset, and hurt, and feeling betrayed.

 

Marie didn’t feel betrayed anymore. He said he’d come back, and maybe he meant that, and maybe he didn’t. He owed her nothing and he never would. She had taken him in when she first met him, so damn long ago, because she wanted to help, and if she did, that meant that her job was done.

 

Slowly, she walked the sand, sometimes digging her toes in, sometimes not. He owed her nothing, yes, and she owed him nothing, too. Which was why if he wasn’t these this time- well, she’d simply stop coming there. It was a place of memories, where his blood first spilled and the water froze her to her bones when she came to save him the first time, and maybe that’s all it was meant to be, really.

* * *

 

Marie didn’t want to feel the disappointment sink in her chest when she came to the same place as before and didn’t see him there. The rocks were there, the ones that could cut her to ribbons if she let them, and the water still lapped up at the exact same places, but he was missing.

 

Marie sighed and plopped down, letting her knees stay up and dropping her flip flops to the ground.

 

“Well, what did you expect, Marie?” she asked herself, seeing how the moon, newly rising, was casting a magical glow to the water. “What do you think you live in? Some stupid romantic comedy?”

 

She let out another long suffering sigh, resting her cheek against her knee.

 

Fine. Okay. The universe won. She’d move on. Maybe he had already found a pretty merlady and they made merbabies and he was merhappy and- lord, she needed to stop. She closed her eyes and breathed in the salt water, the breeze ruffling her hair. The sounds of the ocean were always so soothing. The waves crashing down, the birds, the inexplicable, quiet cursing, the-

 

Wait, inexplicable quiet cursing? Yeah, no, not normal.

 

Instantly, Marie was up and on her feet, eyes alert, phone gripped in her hand. If it was another random drunk guy wandering over to the part of the beach that was only allowed for lifeguards or other such personnel, she was going to march up to the police personally and ask them to put up better barricades.

 

And-, yes, yep, that was definitely a drunk man, flopping around near the rocks, yelping.

 

“Hey!” Marie called, angry. Why couldn’t she just have her moping moment in peace? God, couldn’t a girl even have a pity party without being interrupted. “Hey, get off of those damn rocks! You’re gonna cut your stomach open!”

 

“Fuck- shit- _fuck_ ,” the man answered back, eloquently, or, at least, she thought he did. His voice was mostly muffled by the waves and he kept falling down, looking as though his feet were failing him.

 

“Hey!” she yelled again, looking around for a safe place to stand so she could get a better look at him. Mostly, he was in shadows, his silhouette the only thing she was privy to, but she saw the way his knees came out of the water as he tried to roll around. “Do you need help or something? Good. . .lord. . .” she finished, looking at him, and she felt her lower lip drop, sucking in a deep breath when some of the moonlight finally illuminated him.

 

But a lot of people had silver hair. A lot of them. And- he didn’t have legs. No way. He had made fun of even the thought, before and-

 

“. . .hello?” she asked, this time, more quietly as she bit her lip and started wading through the water, a bit, trying to avoid the rocks. “Are you hurt?”

 

“. . .no. Merely humiliated,” he said, and she knew that damn voice. She knew it she knew it she _knew it_ , and, hell, rocks be damned, she was practically sprinting over, words tripping over themselves as she all but tackled him into the ocean.

 

The yelp he let out was endearing in ways no one else would agree with, high and raggedy as he fell back into the water and gurgled, sputtering as the waves flicked over them, but she didn’t care. She was too busy hugging his face to her chest and practically suffocating him before she let him go and got a good look at his face.

 

And he got a good look at hers, smirking slightly and bringing himself up on a powerful arm to lean in closer and-

 

- _smack-_

“You- _asshole!_ I came here every day for a damn month looking for you and now you just show up and- you have legs! Where did you get legs? Why didn’t you show up? Is it because you had legs? Why now? Oh my god is this a temporary thing?” she babbled, expression fierce, and he looked utterly flabbergasted before he simply laughed, not bothering to rub at the spot on his shoulder she’d smacked.

 

“In order,” he said, in the same snarky, sharky way as always, and it brought a wave of absolute nostalgia over her, and some odd mix of longing and glee. “Sorry. Yes, I have legs. Had someone who owed me a favor. Didn’t show up because I was cashing in said favor. Yes. Finally worked it all out. Not a temporary thing. Would you like to interrogate me some more or-“

 

“Shut up,” she said, hugging him, again. Later, she’d question exactly what he’d done to cash in said favor, or who he had to get it from, but her hands climbed up his back, feeling where his fin would once be and encountering nothing, just scar tissue. She nuzzled against him, feeling how warm he was, and he let one hand come to her back, too, careful as anything. “Welcome back.”

 

“I suppose I’ll need a place to reside.”

 

“It’s okay, my bathroom is free.”

 

She didn’t even need to see him to know he was making a sour expression, and she laughed before she felt something brush against her foot and yelped. “Yeah, yes, okay, time to get out of the water,” she said, dislodging her hold on him and standing up, holding out a hand.

 

He looked at it for a moment before he grasped it, and she helped him up, feeling just how much dead weight he was. He clearly didn’t know how to use his legs, because he instantly wobbled, but she came under him, throwing his arm over her shoulders so he could use her as support.

 

“Wow, like old times,” she said, but realized that he was- wow, he was really fucking tall. She blinked for a moment but decided to address that later, such as when they were actually at her house, and when he wasn’t-“Oy! I can’t take you home like this!” Marie complained, slowly navigating their way to the shore. “You’re naked!”

 

She could hear the incredulity in his voice. “Carrying a man with a bleeding wound and a shark tail to your home, not an issue. A naked man, however, suddenly you have problems with?”

 

“Shush. It’s still relatively early! They didn’t give you pants with those legs?” she asked, looking down at the newest addition on his body. And, oh, yes, yep, she shouldn’t have looked there but a girl got curious and now she was blushing and- “You can wear my sarong,” she said, all but dropping him as her voice pitched up, and Stein wobbled. She must have forgotten that he couldn’t stand up on his own, because she let him go to undo her very wet sarong and he collapsed, leaving her to yelp and kneel down next to him, apologizing, to which he only groaned as he rubbed at his side where he’d landed, hard, and grumbled like an old man.

 

“No, I’m content on the floor, thank you,” he said, sarcastically, and Marie giggled, finally throwing the scarf down on him.

 

“Same old, same old,” she remarked, plopping down next to him. The sand clung to them with a vengeance, but she didn’t care. Instead, she sprawled out just like he did, letting their hands fall together. After a moment, with nothing but the sound of the ocean to hide them, she spoke up again. “I missed you.”

 

“Not much to miss,” he remarked, but she shook her head, rolling to the side and propping herself up on an elbow so she could look at him, carefully moving his hair off of his face, watching him watch her.

 

“That’s not true,” she said, smiling at him gently, and she could feel the way his fingers were stroking over her own, such tentative touches. “There was a lot to miss. I’ll miss the tail, too.  And the fin.”

 

“Hmm,” he responded, grinning at her lazily. “Is there anything in particular you missed the most?” he asked, curious to the end, and her gaze flicked down to his mouth, and by the way his grin turned to a smirk, she could tell he knew exactly what she was thinking.

 

But she didn’t care. It had been so long. Carefully, she dislodged his hold on her hand so she could press it to his chest, instead, feeling it beating beneath her palm so she could use him as leverage, leaning down.

 

When he pressed up, meeting her in the middle, it was like water coming upon a shore.

* * *

 

“So,” she said, after she pulled away, her singular functioning eye glinting as he threaded his hand through her hair, trying to bring her down for another kiss. “You really _are_ the Little Mermaid, now. I hope you realize that I fully expect you to serenade me.”

 

He groaned, simply sitting up to kiss her, again.

 

He still resented that damn movie.

 

But at least it got _something_ right.  

**Author's Note:**

> oh good lord it's finally done, i wrote like 12 thousand words of this in 5 hours last night
> 
> s/o to my partner, soundofez, who made art too good for this to actually have! She's the owner and creator of the gorgeous opening image, but she also made a comic! You can find more of her accompanying art: http://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/156411395503/is-it-like-the-ocean-its-finally-here-and-i-am !! She's been the only part of this resbang that kept me going tbh <3 <3 <3


End file.
